Stoves with regulators

If you have a regulator, then you can design a low-pressure stove, and it will operate optimally even when the canister pressure is low.

In my experience, with a needle valve stove, if it’s cold, if you turn it up to a reasonable level, then the canister will cool further from evaporative cooling.  After a couple minutes, the flame level will gradually go down to almost nothing.  Then I’ll notice it, curse, and turn up the needle valve to get the flame level back up.

With a regulator stove, it will maintain the flame level.

The utility of this is limited though.  Turning up the needle valve is no big deal.

The regulator valve does nothing to lower the minimum temperature a stove will operate at.

The two regulator stoves I’ve used, Soto and MSR, are both work pretty good even if the fact they have regulator valves is of little value.

There were some deep dives on this topic here at BPL when SOTO introduced the Windmaster with its micro-regulator.  I cannot remember all the details.

Needless to say, my SOTO Windmaster is a great stove but I suspect most of the reason for its great performance lies in the burner design.

A regulator only sets a maximum discharge pressure. If the canister pressure falls below that set point on the regulator, then it is not actually regulating anything, which could possibly happen if your canister is very cold.

Unregulated stoves can output too much gas (energy) for the target (water in a pot) to absorb per unit of time, but that is also true of a regulated stove, it’s just easier to do on an unregulated stove. Like the BRS (which sounds like a jet engine when turned up too high)

The Soto Windmaster (a regulated stove) was praised as the best designed stove by stove guru Jon fong. The main benefit is the integrated wind shield on the burner head, plus the short distance between head and pot. If I remember it was like .200″. Although the MSR PR2 has a nearly identical burner shape, the gap is closer to .300 or more.

The result per Jon’s tests is that the Soto Windmaster is the only stove to boil water in his 8mph wind test. The MSR would heat but not rolling boil. The Reactor was the only other stove to achelieve this, but the Reactor is a radiant type burner.

IMO there is no reason to look at other stoves besides the windmaster. It has everything you want and nothing you don’t. At most you save 1.8oz with a BRS but that weight is negated by lower fuel efficiency and a need for a wind shield in a measly 2mph wind.

IMO there is no reason to look at other stoves besides the windmaster. It has everything you want and nothing you don’t.

Really?

I far and away prefer the MSR PR2. The Soto’s rube-goldberg pot supports (I had both types) and unreliable piezo igniter are zero’s for me. I also found it much simpler to design and build a rock-solid, simple, and effective 1oz windscreen for the PR2. Coupled with a heat exchange pot it’s about the most efficient cannister stove setup I’ve found.

I am having deja vu moment.  Again. :)

I’ve used both windmaster and PR2 and they’ve both been 100% reliable and equivalent performance.  Currently, I’m using the windmaster, so I must think that’s better.

A defect with the PR2, is that the piezo wire can come off it’s connection so you have to unscrew the cup, and carefully put the wire back over it’s connection as you screw the cup back on.  I have heard of two people that had this problem.

A defect with the windmaster is the pot support is mounted to the cup.  The three support version is thinner, so it gets eroded by the flame, but it didn’t fail.  It looks like it would eventually.  I switched to the four support version and that’s been fine – thicker metal.

If you want to use a Mulder strip in cold weather, the windmaster is taller, the strip is longer, so it doesn’t work very good.

The BRS 2000 is shorter, saves 2 ounces, and works like a charm with a Mulder strip.

This would be a case for owning another stove